“Good luck to you,” she whispered in my ear as she pecked the air next to my cheek and walked away.

My brain told me to say “thank you” – that’s how I’ve been brought up – but I was caught off guard and cognition was limited.

But she is right. Good luck to me indeed.

In a world where I have to convince, argue and force people all the time to let me keep doing the things I am doing or let me do the things I want to do, I need all the luck I can get.

Don’t get me wrong: I am not oppressed or suppressed. I enjoy almost a first-world like lifestyle despite being a speck in my third-world country’s population. But I definitely live in a place where even a broader mind does not let go of (their own definition of) traditions, social structures and the its-always-done-this-ways. And people like me will always want to travel in two different boats at the same time.

How do you say exactly what’s on your mind? How do you give your listener the exact picture that you’re seeing? That exact array of emotions?

And once another person has heard you, whatever you said becomes toothpaste. You can’t cram the words back in your mouth and swallow them out of existence, no matter how much you want to do so later.

Generally, you have to convince yourself to talk. That talking it out would help you with your problem. You talk yourself into talking. And all the while, your heart pounds like a drum and your throat feels scratchy and you sound squeaky like a boy who hasn’t hit puberty yet.

When you do manage to string two words together and spew them out with sound, it comes out wrong. Of the ocean you want to convey, you barely outline a puddle.

And you realize how futile speaking your mind is. The other person might listen but is not going to understand.

So you trail off, have your palate give your tongue a hug and silently brood on.

Sometimes in life, it’s very vital that we take a step back, reevaluate and then do whatever we were doing. It’s important to see “life” in a different light, with a different perspective.

For example, just today, I opened Candy Crush on my phone after ages. I had been stuck on level 140 for a while now and had basically just given up. Today, within two tries, I managed to complete the level.